The teen driver in the single-vehicle crash that killed them is now two years older and was treated as an adult as he was sentenced today on two counts of vehicular homicide.

Gussie J. Brown, IV, 19, of Easton,
who was 17 years old at the time of the crash, faces four years in New Jersey State Prison.

Brown's attorney Scott Wilhelm,
asked the judge to consider shaving a year off the sentence suggested by the
prosecutor's office in a plea deal agreed to in June. If granted, the sentence
would have mirrored prison time proposed when Brown's case was still in
juvenile court.

The case was moved to criminal court earlier this year through a motion filed by the prosecutor's office. Wilhelm described Brown's actions as careless but rooted in his inexperience as a driver and immaturity
as a 17-year-old.

"He's not a bad person," Wilhelm said. "He did
not get behind the wheel and intend to kill his friends."

Brown, who didn't have a license, was
driving from a party Oct. 30, 2010, when he lost control of the vehicle and slammed
into trees on Rockport Road
in MansfieldTownship.
He'd been driving faster than 90 miles per hour at the time and had been drinking intermittently
before getting behind the wheel.

Brown learned the importance of road
laws that night, Wilhelm said. He said that three years would satisfy the
punishment component of Brown's sentence, but that additional time would not
further serve society or his client's road to rehabilitation.

"Hanging around with career
criminals, murderers and rapists doesn't help anyone," he said. "There's
nothing to be gained from it."

Mosco agreed some of Brown's
behavior could be attributed to his youth but said that ultimately he acted
recklessly when he sped on winding, rural roads. She said Brown and another juvenile passenger fled the crash and hid in the woods, abandoning Irwin in the front passenger seat and Reisberg,
who had been thrown 12 to 15 feet from the vehicle.

More
recently, Brown eluded Phillipsburg
police twice in April, charges which were included in today's
sentence. Mosco said these instances couldn't
be dismissed as the product of youth.

Brown read from a prepared statement
before he was sentenced and apologized to the victims' families. His mother
and girlfriend sat a few rows behind him, and Irwin's parents sat on the other
side. He mumbled through most of the letter, and Wilhelm
had to take over at one point when his client started crying.

"I have to live with this for the rest of my life," Brown
said. "Two innocent lives because of my truly foolish ways."

Judge Ann R. Bartlett said that while she believed that Brown
didn't intend to hurt anyone, she planned to adhere to the plea agreement.

"Everybody's punishment will last a lifetime," she said. "Yours
and the family of the victims."